Mental Illness
Mental Illness Mental illness is a disorder that is characterized by
disturbances in a person’s thought, emotions, or behavior. Mental illness refers
to a wide variety of disorders, ranging from those that cause mild distress to
those that impair a person’s ability to function in daily life. Many have tried
to figure out the reasons for mental illnesses. All of these reasons have been
looked at and thought of for thousands of years. The biological perspective
views mental illness as a bodily process. Where as the psychological
perspectives think the role of a person’s upbringing and environment are causes
for mental illnesses. Researchers estimate that about 24 percent of people over
eighteen in the United States suffer from some sort of common mental illness,
such as depression and phobias. Studies have also shown that 2.6 percent of
adults in the United States suffer from some sort of severe form of mental
illness, such as schizophrenia, panic disorders, or bipolar disorders. Younger
people also suffer from mental illnesses the same way that adults do. 14 to 20
percent of individuals under the age of eighteen suffer from a case of mental
illness. Studies show that 9 to 13 percent of children between the ages of nine
and seventeen suffer from a serious emotional disturbances, that disrupts the
child’s daily life. Major depression is a severe disorder.
Symptoms include
withdraw from family and/or friends, weight loss, sleeping problems, frequent
crying, fleeing helpless, delusions, and hallucinations. This disease is usually
diagnosed during adolescence; parents may notice grades dropping, poor
self-image, troubled social relations, and suicidal acts. This disease may be
fatal if the person becomes suicidal. Phobia is a disease where a person has an
irrational fear of an object or situation. Some examples of phobias are fear of
flight, cats, heights, enclosed spaces, reptiles, and the most severe is
agoraphobia the fear to leave a safe place such as home. Phobias are diagnosed personhows sings of a certain fear many times. This can only affect a person’s
life if the phobia is severe. For example, if a person has agoraphobia, fear of
leaving a safe place then that person’s life would be very isolated. If a person
has the fear ailurophobia, fear of heights then that person can still live a
normal life. This disease is not fatal unless the person becomes depressed
because of being isolated. Schizophrenia is a disturbance that causes you to
have misperceptions of reality; this may also cause hallucinations and
delusions. Person may also show inadequate speech patterns, impaired social and
occupational functioning, and bad personal hygiene. This disease is usually
diagnosed at a young age. Family and/or friends may notice symptoms.
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